Fortune's Favorites (3 page)

Riding high, Sulpicius then allied himself with Marius and got the Plebeian Assembly to pass another law-a law stripping the command in the war against Mithridates from Sulla and awarding it to Marius instead. Almost seventy years old and crippled by disease he might be, but Marius was not about to let anyone else go to war against Mithridates-especially Sulla.

Sulla was in Campania organizing his army when he heard of the new legislation and his own disqualification. He then made a momentous decision: he would march on Rome. Never in her six hundred years of existence had any Roman done that. But Sulla would. His officers refused to support him except for his loyal quaestor, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, but his soldiers were fervently on his side.

In Rome no one believed Sulla would dare to make war upon his own homeland, so when Sulla and his army arrived outside the city walls, panic ensued. Unable to lay their hands on professional soldiers, Marius and Sulpicius were forced to arm ex-gladiators and slaves to resist Sulla. Who entered the city, trounced the motley opposition, took over Rome, and drove Marius, Sulpicius, Old Brutus and a few other men into flight. Sulpicius was caught before he could leave Italy and beheaded. Marius, after a terrible ordeal in the town of Minturnae, succeeded with Young Marius and the others in reaching Africa, where after many adventures they sheltered among the veterans Marius had settled on Cercina.

As virtual owner of Rome, Sulla's worst act was to fix the head of Sulpicius on the rostra in the Forum Romanum in order to terrify (among others) Cinna into obedience. He repealed all of Sulpicius's laws and put laws of his own into effect. These laws were ultra-conservative, aimed at fully restoring the Senate and discouraging future tribunes of the plebs with radical ideas. Satisfied that he had done what he could to shore up traditional Republican government, Sulla finally departed for the east and the war against Mithridates in 87 B.C. But not before marrying his widowed daughter to Mamercus, brother of the dead Drusus and custodian of the orphaned children.

The exile of Marius, Young Marius, Old Brutus and their companions lasted about a year. Sulla had attempted one final measure to shore up his hastily drafted emergency constitution-he tried to have men loyal to himself elected consuls for 87 B.C. In the case of the senior consul, Gnaeus Octavius Ruso, he did succeed; but the pernickety electors returned Cinna as the junior consul, and Sulla knew this man belonged to Marius. So he tried to secure Cinna's loyalty to the new constitution by making him swear a sacred oath to uphold it- an oath Cinna nullified as he swore it by holding a stone in his hand.

As soon as Sulla had sailed for the east in spring of 87 B.C., strife broke out in Rome. Cinna abrogated his worthless oath and openly opposed Gnaeus Octavius and his ultra-conservative backers-men like Catulus Caesar, Publius Crassus, Lucius Caesar. Cinna was ejected from Rome and outlawed, but the ultra-conservatives failed to make military preparations. Cinna did not; he raised an army and laid siege to the city. Marius promptly returned from exile and landed in Etruria, where he too raised an army and marched to the aid of Cinna and his confederates Quintus Sertorius and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo.

The ultra-conservatives, desperate, sent to Pompey Strabo in Picenum and begged that he come to their rescue, as he had not disbanded his army of loyal vassals. Accompanied by his son Pompey, Pompey Strabo marched to Rome. But once he arrived there he did nothing to bring on a battle against Cinna, Marius, Carbo and Sertorius. All he did was to sit in a huge, insanitary camp outside the Colline Gate and antagonize the inhabitants of Rome's northern hills by polluting their water and causing a frightful epidemic of enteric fever.

The Siege of Rome ground on for some time, but eventually a battle took place between Pompey Strabo and Sertorius. It came to no conclusion, for Pompey Strabo fell ill with enteric fever and collapsed. Shortly afterward he died. Aided by his friend Cicero, young Pompey prepared to bury his father; but the people of the devastated northern hills of Rome stole the body, stripped it naked, tethered it behind an ass, and dragged it through their streets. After a frantic search Pompey and Cicero found it. The outraged Pompey then quit Rome to take his father's body and army back to Picenum.

Bereft of Pompey Strabo's army, Rome was incapable of further resistance, and surrendered to Cinna and Marius. Cinna entered the city at once. Whereas Marius refused to do so, stating that he was still officially an outlaw and would not move from the protection of his camp and soldiers until Cinna had not only repealed the decree of outlawry, but had succeeded in having Marius elected consul for the prophesied seventh time. Sertorius also refused to enter the city, but not because of events; the cousin of Marius, he had realized that Marius was mad, his brain eroded by that second stroke.

Understanding that every soldier would if pushed serve Marius ahead of himself, Cinna had no choice other than to see himself and Marius “elected” consuls for the year 86 B.C., now only days away. And on New Year's Day Marius entered Rome as consul for the seventh time; the prophecy was fulfilled. With him he brought five thousand ex-slaves fanatically devoted to his cause.

A bloodbath ensued, the like of which Rome had never seen. Quite demented, Marius ordered his ex-slaves to slaughter all his enemies and many of his friends; the rostra bristled with heads, including those of Catulus Caesar, Lucius Caesar, Caesar Strabo, Publius Crassus, and Gnaeus Octavius Ruso.

Gaius Julius Caesar, father of Young Caesar, returned to Rome in the midst of the carnage to find himself summoned to see Marius in the Forum Romanum. There he was informed by Marius that his thirteen-year-old son was to be made the flamen Dialis, the special priest of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, principal deity of Rome. For the crazed old man had found the perfect way to prevent Young Caesar from enjoying a political or military career. Young Caesar would never now surpass Gaius Marius in the annals of Rome. The flamen Dialis was forbidden to touch iron, ride a horse, handle a weapon or see the moment of death (as well as a host of other taboos); he could never fight on a battlefield or stand for election to curule executive office. Because at the moment of inauguration and consecration the flamen Dialis had to be married to another patrician, Marius ordered Cinna (a patrician) to give his seven-year-old younger daughter, Cinnilla, to Young Caesar as his wife. The two children were immediately married, after which Young Caesar was formally made flamen Dialis, and his wife Cinnilla flaminica Dialis.

Scant days into his seventh consulship, Gaius Marius was felled by a third and terminal stroke. He died on the thirteenth day of January. His cousin Sertorius then killed the huge band of ex-slaves, and the bloodbath was over. Cinna took a Valerius Flaccus as his consular colleague to replace Marius, and began the process of soothing a shaken Rome. Now flamen Dialis and a married boy, Young Caesar contemplated a dreary and disappointing future as the lifelong servant of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

Finding his feet, Cinna took control of a much-reduced Senate; while he repealed some of Sulla's laws, he did not repeal all, and the Senate was allowed to continue to exist. Under his aegis, the Senate formally stripped the absent Sulla of his command against King Mithridates and authorized the other consul, Flaccus, to take four legions to the east and relieve Sulla. Flaccus's senior legate in this enterprise was Fimbria, a savage and undisciplined man who yet inspired affection in his soldiers.

But when Flaccus and Fimbria reached central Macedonia they decided not to turn south into Greece (where Sulla was lying with his army); instead they continued to march across Macedonia toward the Hellespont and Asia Minor. Quite unable to control Fimbria, Flaccus found himself subordinate to his subordinate. Quarreling and disaffected, they reached Byzantium, where the final and fatal falling-out took place. Flaccus was murdered and Fimbria assumed the command. He crossed into Asia Minor and commenced-very successfully-to war against King Mithridates.

Sulla had become bogged down in Greece, which had welcomed the generals and armies of Mithridates and now hosted a huge Mithridatic force. The city of Athens had defected, so Sulla besieged it; after bitter resistance it fell. Sulla then won two stunning victories around Lake Orchomenus in Boeotia.

His legate Lucullus had assembled a fleet and also inflicted defeats upon Pontus. Then Fimbria trapped Mithridates in Pitane and sent to Lucullus to help him capture the King by blockading the harbor. Haughtily Lucullus refused to work with a Roman he considered not legally appointed. The result was that Mithridates escaped via the sea.

By the summer of 85 B.C. Sulla had expelled the Pontic armies from Europe, and himself crossed into Asia Minor. On August (Sextilis) 5, the King of Pontus agreed to the Treaty of Dardanus, which required that he retire inside his own borders and stay there. Sulla also dealt with Fimbria, whom he pursued until Fimbria in despair committed suicide; forbidding Fimbria's troops ever to return to Italy, Sulla incorporated them into a standing army for use in Asia Province and Cilicia.

Sulla was very well aware that King Mithridates was by no means a spent force when he tendered the Treaty of Dardanus and obliged the King to retire. However, he was also aware that if he remained in the east much longer, he would lose all chance of regaining what he considered as his rightful position in Rome. His wife Dalmatica and his daughter Cornelia Sulla had been forced to flee to join him under the escort of Mamercus; his house had been looted and burned down; his property had been confiscated (except that Mamercus had managed to conceal most of it); and his status was now that of an outlaw stripped of Roman citizenship and under interdiction. As was true of his followers; many of the members of the Senate had also fled to join him, unwilling to live under Cinna's administration. Among the refugees were Appius Claudius Pulcher, Publius Servilius Vatia, and Marcus Licinius Crassus, the latter from Spain.

Thus Sulla had no choice but to turn his back on Mithridates and return to Rome; this he planned to do in 84 B.C., but a very serious illness compelled him to linger in Greece for a further year, fretting because his extended absence gave Cinna and his confederates more time to prepare for war. War there was bound to be-Italy was not big enough to contain two factions so obdurately opposed to each other-and so unwilling to forgive and forget for the sake of peace.

* * *

So too did Cinna and Cinna's Rome understand that war with Sulla on his return was inevitable. When Cinna learned of the death of his consular colleague, Flaccus, he took a new and much stronger man as junior consul, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo. Together with their pliant Senate, they decided that Sulla must be opposed before he reached Italy, still exhausted from the Italian War. With the object of stopping Sulla in western Macedonia before he could cross the Adriatic Sea, Cinna and Carbo began to recruit a huge army which they shipped to Illyricum, just to the north of western Macedonia.

But recruitment was slow, especially in the fief of the dead Pompey Strabo, Picenum. Thinking his personal attendance would attract more volunteers, Cinna himself journeyed to Ancona to supervise the enlistments. There Pompey Strabo's son Pompey paid Cinna a visit, apparently toying with the idea of joining up. However, he did not. Shortly afterward Cinna died in Ancona in circumstances shrouded with mystery. Carbo took over Rome and control of the Senate, but decided that Sulla would have to be allowed to land in Italy. The war against him would have to be fought on Italian soil after all. Back came the troops from Illyricum, and Carbo laid his plans. After securing the election of two tame consuls, Scipio Asiagenus and Gaius Norbanus, Carbo went to govern Italian Gaul, and placed himself and his section of the army in the port city of Ariminum.

The stage was set. Now read on....

Though the steward held his five-flamed lamp high enough to illuminate the two recumbent figures in the bed, he knew its light had not the power to waken Pompey. For this, he would need Pompey's wife. She stirred, frowned, turned her head away in an effort to remain asleep, but the vast house was murmuring beyond the open door, and the steward was calling her.

“Domina! Domina!”

Even in confusion modest–servants did not make a habit of invading Pompey's bedchamber–Antistia made sure she was decently covered before she sat up.

“What is it? What's the matter?”

“An urgent message for the master. Wake him and tell him to come to the atrium,” barked the steward rudely. The lamp flames dipped and smoked as he swung on his heel and left; the door closed, plunging her into darkness.

Oh, that vile man! He had done it deliberately! But she knew where her shift lay across the foot of the bed, drew it on, and shouted for a light.

Nothing woke Pompey. Provided with a lamp and a warm wrap, Antistia finally turned back to the bed to discover him slumbering still. Nor did he seem to feel the cold, lying on his back uncovered to the waist.

She had tried on other occasions-and for other reasons-to kiss him awake, but never could. Shakes and pummels it would have to be.

“What?” he asked, sitting up and running his hands through his thick yellow thatch; the quiff above his peaked hairline stood up alertly. So too were the blue eyes surveying her alert. That was Pompey: apparently dead one moment, wide awake the next. Both soldiers' habits. “What?” he asked again.

“There's an urgent message for you in the atrium.”

But she hadn't managed to finish the sentence before he was on his feet and his feet were shoved into backless slippers and a tunic was falling carelessly off one freckled shoulder. Then he was gone, the door gaping behind him.

For a moment Antistia stood where she was, undecided. Her husband hadn't taken the lamp-he could see in the dark as well as any cat-so there was nothing to stop her following save her own knowledge that probably he wouldn't like it. Well, bother that! Wives were surely entitled to share news important enough to invade the master's sleep! So off she went with her little lamp barely showing her the way down that huge corridor flagged and walled with bare stone blocks. A turn here-a flight of steps there-and suddenly she was out of the forbidding Gallic fortress and into the civilized Roman villa, all pretty paint and plaster.

Lights blazed everywhere; the servants had busied themselves to some effect. And there was Pompey clad in no more than a tunic yet looking like the personification of Mars-oh, he was wonderful!

He might even have confided in her, for his eyes did take her presence in. But at the same moment Varro arrived in startled haste, and Antistia's chance to share personally in whatever was causing the excitement vanished.

“Varro, Varro!” Pompey shouted. Then he whooped, a shrill and eldritch sound with nothing Roman in it; just so had long-dead Gauls whooped as they spilled over the Alps and took whole chunks of Italy for their own, including Pompey's Picenum.

Antistia jumped, shivered. So, she noticed, did Varro.

“What is it?”

“Sulla has landed in Brundisium!”

“Brundisium! How do you know?”

“What does that matter?” demanded Pompey, crossing the mosaic floor to seize little Varro by both shoulders and shake him. “It's here, Varro! The adventure has begun!”

“Adventure?” Varro gaped. “Oh, Magnus, grow up! It's not an adventure, it's a civil war-and on Italian soil yet again!”

“I don't care!” cried Pompey. “To me, it's an adventure. If you only knew how much I've longed for this news, Varro! Since Sulla left, Italy has been as tame as a Vestal Virgin's lapdog!”

“What about the Siege of Rome?” asked Varro through a yawn.

The happy excitement fled from Pompey's face, his hands fell; he stepped back and looked at Varro darkly. “I would prefer to forget the Siege of Rome!” he snapped. “They dragged my father's naked body tied to an ass through their wretched streets!”

Poor Varro flushed so deeply the color flooded into his balding pate. “Oh, Magnus, I do beg your pardon! I did not-I would not-I am your guest-please forgive me!”

But the mood was gone. Pompey laughed, clapped Varro on the back. “Oh, it wasn't your doing, I know that!”

The huge room was piercingly cold; Varro clasped his arms about his body. “I had better start for Rome at once.”

Pompey stared. “Rome? You're not going to Rome, you're coming with me! What do you think will happen in Rome? A lot of sheep running around bleating, the old women in the Senate arguing for days-come with me, it will be much more fun!”

“And where do you think you're going?”

“To join Sulla, of course.”

“You don't need me for that, Magnus. Climb on your horse and ride off. Sulla will be glad to find you a place among his junior military tribunes, I'm sure. You've seen a lot of action.”

“Oh, Varro!” Flapping hands betrayed Pompey's exasperation. “I'm not going to join Sulla as a junior military tribune! I'm going to bring him three more legions! I, Sulla's lackey! Never! I intend to be his full partner in this enterprise.”

This astounding announcement broke upon Pompey's wife as upon Pompey's friend and houseguest; aware that she had gasped, almost voiced her shock aloud, Antistia moved quickly to a place where Pompey's eyes would not encounter her. He had quite forgotten her presence and she wanted to hear. Needed to hear.

In the two and a half years she had been his wife, Pompey had left her side for more than a day on only one occasion. Oh, the loveliness of that! To enjoy his undivided attention! Tickled, chided, rumpled, ruffled, hugged, bitten, bruised, tumbled ... Like a dream. Who could ever have imagined it? She, the daughter of a senator of mere middle rank and barely sufficient fortune, to find herself given in marriage to Gnaeus Pompeius who called himself Magnus! Rich enough to marry anyone, the lord of half Umbria and Picenum, so fair and handsome everyone thought he looked like a reincarnation of Alexander the Great-what a husband her father had found for her! And after several years of despairing that she would never find a suitable husband, so small was her dowry.

Naturally she had known why Pompey had married her; he had needed a great service from her father. Who happened to be the judge at Pompey's trial. That had been a trumped-up affair, of course-all of Rome had known it. But Cinna had desperately needed vast sums to fund his recruitment campaign, and young Pompey's wealth was going to provide those vast sums. For which reason had young Pompey been indicted upon charges more correctly directed at his dead father, Pompey Strabo-that he had illegally appropriated some of the spoils from the city of Asculum Picentum. Namely, one hunting net and some buckets of books. Trifling. The catch lay not in the magnitude of the offense, but in the fine; were Pompey to be convicted, Cinna's minions empaneled to decide the size of the penalty were at perfect liberty to fine him his entire fortune.

A more Roman man would have settled to fight the case in court and if necessary bribe the jury; but Pompey-whose very face proclaimed the Gaul in him-had preferred to marry the judge's daughter. The time of year had been October, so while November and December wore themselves away, Antistia's father had conducted his court with masterly inaction. The trial of his new son-in-law never really eventuated, delayed by inauspicious omens, accusations of corrupt jurors, meetings of the Senate, agues and plagues. With the result that in January, the consul Carbo had persuaded Cinna to look elsewhere for the money they so desperately needed. The threat to Pompey's fortune was no more.

Barely eighteen, Antistia had accompanied her dazzling marital prize to his estates in the northeast of the Italian peninsula, and there in the daunting black stone pile of the Pompey stronghold had plunged wholeheartedly into the delights of being Pompey's bride. Luckily she was a pretty little girl stuffed with dimples and curves, and just ripe for bed, so her happiness had been undiluted for quite a long time. And when the twinges of disquiet began to intrude, they came not from her adored Magnus but from his faithful retainers, servants and minor squires who not only looked down on her, but actually seemed to feel free to let her know they looked down on her. Not a great burden-as long as Pompey was close enough to come home at night. But now he was talking of going off to war, of raising legions and enlisting in Sulla's cause! Oh, what would she do without her adored Magnus to shield her from the slights of his people?

He was still trying to convince Varro that the only proper alternative was to go with him to join Sulla, but that prim and pedantic little fellow-so elderly in mind for one who had not been in the Senate more than two years!-was still resisting.

“How many troops has Sulla got?” Varro was asking.

“Five veteran legions, six thousand cavalry, a few volunteers from Macedonia and the Peloponnese, and five cohorts of Spaniards belonging to that dirty swindler, Marcus Crassus. About thirty-nine thousand altogether.”

An answer which had Varro clawing at the air. “I say again, Magnus, grow up!” he cried. “I've just come from Ariminum, where Carbo is sitting with eight legions and a huge force of cavalry-and that is just the beginning! In Campania alone there are sixteen other legions! For three years Cinna and Carbo gathered troops-there are one hundred and fifty thousand men under arms in Italy and Italian Gaul! How can Sulla cope with such numbers?”

“Sulla will eat them,” said Pompey, unimpressed. “Besides, I'm going to bring him three legions of my father's hardened veterans. Carbo's soldiers are milk-smeared recruits.”

“You really are going to raise your own army?”

“I really am.”

“Magnus, you're only twenty-two years old! You can't expect your father's veterans to enlist for you!”

“Why not?” asked Pompey, genuinely puzzled.

“For one thing, you're eight years too young to qualify for the Senate. You're twenty years away from the consulship. And even if your father's men would enlist under you, to ask them to do so is absolutely illegal. You're a private citizen, and private citizens don't raise armies.”

“For over three years Rome's government has been illegal,” Pompey countered. “Cinna consul four times, Carbo twice, Marcus Gratidianus twice the urban praetor, almost half the Senate outlawed, Appius Claudius banished with his imperium intact, Fimbria running round Asia Minor making deals with King Mithridates-the whole thing is a joke!”

Varro managed to look like a pompous mule-not so very difficult for a Sabine of the rosea rura, where mules abounded. “The matter must be solved constitutionally,” he said.

That provoked Pompey to outright laughter. “Oh, Varro! I do indeed like you, but you are hopelessly unrealistic! If this matter could be solved constitutionally, why are there one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers in Italy and Italian Gaul?”

Again Varro clawed the air, but this time in defeat. “Oh, very well, then! I'll come with you.”

Pompey beamed, threw his arm around Varro's shoulders and guided him in the direction of the corridor which led to his rooms. “Splendid, splendid! You'll be able to write the history of my first campaigns-you're a better stylist than your friend Sisenna. I am the most important man of our age, I deserve to have my own historian at my side.”

But Varro had the last word. “You must be important! Why else would you have the gall-good pun, that!-to call yourself Magnus?” He snorted. “The Great! At twenty-two, The Great! The best your father could do was to call himself after his cross-eyes!”

A sally Pompey ignored, busy now with steward and armorer, issuing a stream of instructions.

And then finally the vividly painted and gilded atrium was empty save for Pompey. And Antistia. He came across to her.

“Silly little kitten, you'll catch a chill,” he scolded, and kissed her fondly. “Back to bed, my honey cake.”

“Can't I help you pack?” she asked, sounding desolate.

“My men will do that for me, but you can watch.”

This time the way was lit by a servant bearing a massive chandelier; fitting herself into Pompey's side, Antistia (still clutching her own little lamp) walked with him to the room where all his war gear was stored. An imposing collection. Fully ten different cuirasses hung from T-shaped poles-gold, silver, steel, leather strapped with phalerae-and swords and helmets hung from pegs on the walls, as did kilts of leather straps and various kinds of padded underpinnings.

“Now stay there and be an absolutely darling little mouse,” Pompey said as he lifted his wife like a feather and put her atop a couple of big chests, her feet dangling clear of the floor.

Where she was forgotten. Pompey and his menservants went through every item one by one-would it be useful, was it going to be necessary? Then when Pompey had ransacked the other trunks scattered around the room, he carelessly transferred his wife to a different perch in order to ransack her original seat, tossing this and that to the waiting slaves, talking away to himself so happily that Antistia could cherish no illusions he was going to miss his wife, his home, or civilian life. Of course she had always known that he regarded himself first and foremost as a soldier, that he despised the more customary pursuits of his peers-rhetoric, law, government, assemblies, the plots and ploys of politics. How many times had she heard him say he would vault himself into the consul's ivory chair on his spear, not on fine words and empty phrases? Now here he was putting his boast into practice, the soldier son of a soldier father going off to war.

The moment the last of the slaves had staggered away under armloads of equipment, Antistia slid off her trunk and went to stand in front of her husband.

“Before you go, Magnus, I must speak to you,” she said.

Clearly this he regarded as a waste of his precious time, but he did pause. “Well, what is it?”

“How long are you going to be away?”

“Haven't the slightest idea,” he said cheerfully.

“Months? A year?”

“Months, probably. Sulla will eat Carbo.”